Title: Watching mutations and evolutionary dynamics in live cells and in real time
Abstract: Evolution allows us to understand the diversity of life and the development of species and populations over a wide range of size and time scales. Evolution occurs as a result of the differential success of organisms in their environment due to variation in their external characteristics; the variation of external characteristics is, in turn, a result of mutation and plasticity of the information encoded within each organism’s genome. Consequently, to theoretically model and describe evolution, it is fundamentally important to understand the rates, statistics, and effects of mutations. In this talk, I will describe the development of experimental techniques by my lab to allow the direct observation, quantification, and modeling of mutations and evolution in real time and in live cells.